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The Top Broadway Shows, As Sorted By Revenue Per Seat — Week Ending Nov. 25

Here are the top Broadway shows last week, ranked by Revenue Per Seat – the one and only metric marketers should use to determine the success of their efforts. Why? Average Ticket Price doesn’t tell the whole story when empty seats are NOT factored into the equation.

To determine RPS, we divided the grosses by venue capacities. Highlighting RPS demonstrates a different and more interesting story about which shows can bring in value per seat versus simply being big, because calculating average ticket price does not account for empty seats.

Take a look and you’ll see with grosses that some shows may bring in a lot of revenue, but aren’t necessarily maximizing their venue. They may have a few high-priced tickets that up their average, but if they’re also leaving seats empty that means money left on the table.

To determine your own RPS, simply divide grosses by the venue capacity. Try it and you’ll discover how much revenue each seat in your theater is bringing in — and perhaps consider new ways to increase this number.

Revenue Per Seat reflects the efficiency of a show’s marketing and the strength of its appeal, where Gross Sales reflects the effectiveness of the show as a money-making entity. Both are important to understand. Take a look at last week’s numbers.